Did I mention she’s stubborn?
I read another obit, of a real estate developer who changed the skyline of my beloved hometown, Philadelphia, and was also responsible for one of my favorite works of art, the giant Clothespin by Claes Oldenburg, which sits in front of the office building where I used to work.
I owe that guy, too.
I used to love to look out of my office window at that sculpture. It’s a brown clothespin that’s ten stories tall, and it made me smile, every day. Because of it, I bought a book about Claes Oldenburg and learned about his life and his art. So the least I can do is take the time to read about the man who introduced me to Claes Oldenburg and send him a mental thank-you note.
I always read the obits of soldiers. I owe it to them, each and every one of them. They’re so young, and they’re out there day and night, putting their very lives on the line while I make dinner or walk the dogs or pour coffee. The obits are the stories of their lives and their accomplishments, which are the greatest and most unselfish of all.
Sacrificing one’s life for another.
But not every obit is of a soldier or a famous doctor, and that’s precisely the point. Lots of obits are of cooks, dentists, teachers, and mechanics. Every death matters, because every life matters.
Everybody owes somebody, sometime.
For example, I read an obit today about a high school English teacher. I can’t imagine how many people owe her. Hundreds, maybe thousands, in all her years of teaching. I also read an obit of a fire captain who trained new firefighters at the fire academy. This was a man who saved lives and taught others to save lives. How many people owe him?
Plenty.
In our own lives, whom do we owe? Mother, father, daughter, sister, brother, aunt, teacher, doctor, girlfriend. It’s all in the obits. Each one tells the story of a human life, and of a family’s love. I look at the notices, I see the names. Grieved by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Greatly missed by his father. Survived by a beloved wife.
It sounds simple to say, almost simplistic, but all of us are connected by love and by gratitude.
And the proof, its very particulars, are the obits.
It’s true that I’m a little sad after I finish reading them.
Sometimes the pictures break my heart.
The faces smile at the camera, grinning at someone they love, happy and alive.
They’re me.
And I remember how lucky I am, every morning.
How lucky we are, in each other.
Past, present, and even future.
All of us.
Amen.
Vroom
I think I need a new car.
But I’m not sure.
I love my car, and I also love the fact that it’s paid for. It’s only five years old but it has over 100,000 miles. I know that’s a lot, but my friend whose husband is a mechanic said it should go to 200,000. And I’m not being a cheapskate, but I was liking the idea of taking care of something and having it last longer than one of my marriages.
It may not happen.
But as I say, I’m not sure.
It’s hard to know if you need a car divorce.
The past few months, lots of things have been going wrong, first with the brakes and then with some kind of pump. The most recent problem was that the entire car began sinking onto its tires. This happened while I was driving, and red lights were flashing like crazy on the dashboard, blinking CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION.
This freaked me out, especially because Daughter Francesca was in the car. You know me well enough to imagine how I’d react to that. Mommy doesn’t want a car problem when baby’s on board.
Plus she wasn’t in her car seat, because she’s twenty-four.
The only good news is that this disaster struck while I was near the dealership, so I was able to hobble there before the wheels began trailing smoke like the Batmobile.
It might have been the last straw for me and the car.
The dealer was able to fix it, but the repair was expensive, and it got me wondering, not for the first time. Maybe we really were over. How many things have to go wrong before we call it quits? In other words, I’m unhappy, but am I unhappy enough?
And am I ready to start seeing other cars?
Obviously I’ve been here before, twice. But ironically, that was a lot easier question, both times. My car worked better than either of my marriages, even considering that it now spontaneously combusts.
If relationships had red lights that blinked CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION, I might not be DIVORCED DIVORCED DIVORCED.
Anyway, I don’t know what kind of car I want. I hadn’t even begun to go there. I started taking special note of the car commercials on TV, and honestly, all the cars look the same. They drive around mountainsides and avoid squirrels. They have tops and tires. They’re all the same car, just with different names.
Then I went online to take a look at what’s on the market, like a rookie on match.com. I started with Google, where I plugged in “how to choose a new car,” which Google helpfully filled in as “how to choose a new career path.”
The only thing dumber than going on Google to choose a new car is going on Google to choose a new life.
Google sent me to websites that made all sorts of suggestions, like “top ten cars for women,” “top ten fuel-saving cars,” and “top ten deals on wheels.” Of these I checked the cars for women, which turned out to be code for minivans.
Uh, no.
I put my nursing bras away, thanks.
I’d been thinking for a long time that I should get a Prius, to help the environment and to feel morally superior.
Twice-divorced people rarely get to feel morally superior.
Then I realized that most of the car companies had “build your own” features, where you could choose a model, color, interior, and options, so I started clicking. I started with Ford, which put me onto Volvo, and on the site, there are like twenty different models, in S, V, X-C, and several other letters, which was dizzying. I switched to Lexus, then to Toyota, then to Mercedes, and two hours later, I had built more cars than a factory.
But I didn’t fall in love.
It’s all too confusing, this mixing of cars and relationships, and in the end, I rejected the Prius because it doesn’t have four-wheel drive.
I need four-wheel drive.
Till death do us part.
Put It in Park
I’m back from test-driving three different cars at three different dealerships.
What have I learned?
That eenie meenie miney mo is an excellent way to buy a car.
There are three types of cars in contention: a small sedan, an SUV, and a sport coupe. Most people would narrow down their choices, but these are the three cars I like. Why compare apples to apples when you can compare apples to Snickers?
Any of these cars would meet my need, which is to run errands with at least two dogs. The cavaliers, Peach and Little Tony, always sleep on the passenger side of the front seat, and Penny the golden usually sits in the backseat. Angie stays at home, the Cinderella of dogs, and Ruby makes her clean the fireplace, like the evil stepmother.
Before I started car shopping, I thought that any largish car would do. All cars look the same, and they all get you there. But when I started driving them, I started driving myself crazy.
Now my head is filled with engine volumes, heated seats, drive trains, and special TV cameras for when you reverse. One car has a double visor, another has a retro dashboard clock. In the end, what really matters is that the car is safe and has great cupholders.
To me, a car is a cupholder with an engine.
I brought the brochures home and immersed myself in jargon and dimensions, but that was no fun at all.
Then it struck me. I realized that if I thought of these cars as men, this would be a more interesting decision.
Hmm.
I can do that.
What kind of man is a sedan, an SUV, or a sp
ort coupe?
To begin, the sedan would be the marrying kind of cars. Reliable, dependable, and the sort of car you want to have kids with. A good provider on wheels, but not so boring that it wouldn’t notice if you changed your hair color or dropped a few pounds. An even-tempered, keep-it-real guy, but classy enough that you wouldn’t have to fib about how much you spent on those shoes.
To sum up, the sedan would be a great husband, which I hear exists and is not yet extinct in certain parts of the world.
I’m liking the sedan, the more I think about it.
I do.
The only problem with the sedan is that I have a sedan now, and the best color offered in the sedan is white, so this would be my fourth white sedan. This is like marrying the same white guy over and over, which is the one mistake I didn’t make.
I married two different white guys.
So I feel a little lame choosing the hubbymobile.
After all, I’m still single, and I’m not dead yet.
The second car is an SUV, which I visualize as the Brawny Paper Towel Guy of cars. Not necessarily a hot guy, but a rugged kind of guy, who exists only in romance novels or maybe in Canada.
A manly car.
A car that came with a tool belt.
A car that could build its own garage.
A car that could cut down trees, split wood, and build a fire. This car would smell like hard work and hard soap, and wear a checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up on muscular forearms. And this car would leave a few buttons open at the neck, not on purpose but just because he was out doing manly things with no coat on, and the open collar would reveal that he had the perfect amount of chest hair.
For chest hair, I don’t need cupholders.
I can hold my own cup.
Ahem.
But on the other hand, there are times when I dress up. Not often, but sometimes. And when I’m wearing something nice, I don’t want to be seen on the arm of the Brawny Paper Towel Guy of cars.
If he’s wearing Timberlands, I can’t wear heels.
So he might not be the car guy for me.
The last car choice is the sport coupe, and if you need me to tell you what kind of man the sport coupe is, you’re new around here. Sleek, sexy, and fast, this is a superhot, powerful car with a Spanish accent, or maybe French, or Italian. Okay, let’s just make it a European accent that renders everything the car says incomprehensible, especially when it whispers in your ear, which is when you realize it doesn’t matter what the car said, only that it whispered into your ear.
Vroom vroom.
This car is the kind of man who would get you in trouble with the law.
You could get a speeding ticket standing still in this car, and you might even start stealing other cars if it would make this car happy.
You would perform for this car instead of the other way around.
In short, if I got the coupe, I could end up in jail.
Maybe I should rethink this decision.
And take a cold shower.
Just Desserts
It can be a problem when your kid comes home to visit. You’re not used to living together, and even the littlest thing can cause a fuss.
For Daughter Francesca and me, it was dessert.
We’re finally on the same page, food-wise, which is a nice way of saying that we’re both trying to lose weight, so we’re eating healthy foods. She’s home this weekend, so for dinner I made politically correct pasta. By which I mean, I sautéed a few tomatoes in olive oil with whole cloves of garlic, and when the mixture got soft, I took it out of the pan and dumped it on top of whole-wheat spaghetti.
By the way, the best thing about this recipe, which I invented, is that it uses garlic without having to chop it up. I hate it when my fingers smell like garlic, and I don’t buy garlic already chopped, because that’s cheating. But this way, if you toss whole cloves in the pan, they get mushy, and you can mash them with a fork. Mashing is more fun than chopping, and doesn’t involve your fingers.
You pay nothing extra for these culinary tips.
Go with God.
And before I tell you about the fight, let me mention also that I’m working on portion control. I know that’s my main problem. This should have been a reasonable-calorie dinner, even though it’s pasta, but I always up the ante by getting a second and a third helping. You might ask, why do you make so much food in the first place, Lisa? The answer is simple.
I’m Italian.
Actually the truth is, I like to make extra of everything, like scrambled eggs, so I can give some to the dogs. Every morning, I make six eggs, knowing that I’ll eat two and give them the rest. They wait patiently during my breakfast, knowing that their eggs will come. It’s all very easy.
But I was doing the same thing with whole-wheat pasta, making extra for the dogs, until I realized I was using them as my portion-control beard.
I busted myself and stopped.
To stay on point, I made a delightful spaghetti meal, and Francesca made a side salad. We had a fun dinner, yapping away and trying not to eat more helpings of pasta, even though it was calling to us from the colander. When we finished our meal, I wanted dessert.
This, I can’t help.
I love to eat dessert right after dinner. And when I say right, I mean immediately. Timing is everything. It doesn’t have to be a lot of something, just a taste. It’s not my fault, and I figured out why this is so:
It’s because dessert sounds so much like deserve. Also, we say that people get their just deserts, which means they get what they deserve. So, ipso fatso, I feel as if I deserve dessert.
Right now.
But Francesca doesn’t like dessert right after dinner. She can wait, which I consider a four-letter word.
This is a long-standing battle we have, because I like us to eat together, and the conversation usually goes like this: I ask her, “Want some dessert?”
She answers, “No, thanks. We just ate.”
“But don’t you want something sweet? I’m having mine now.”
“No, I’m not hungry for dessert yet.”
I get cranky. “When do you think you’ll want dessert?”
“I don’t know. Later.”
“Sooner later or later later?”
Okay, so usually I don’t eat my dessert then, and we retire to the family room, where we watch TV and work, and I spend the rest of the night asking her, “Is it later yet?”
Just like she used to ask me, “Are we there yet?”
Payback, no?
So last night, I figured I’d solve this problem. All I wanted was a small helping of vanilla ice cream, with a banana. And because I wanted it right after dinner, I decided to have it then. If I had to eat alone, so be it. Plus, this way I’d have more time to burn off the calories, by reaching for the remote throughout the evening.
So I had my ice cream and banana.
Delicious.
But then what happened was that sometime around nine o’clock, Francesca sauntered into the kitchen and returned with a small plate of vanilla ice cream. She strolled over to the couch, sat down, and started eating.
I stared at her, along with the dogs.
It looked so delicious. I could almost taste it on my tongue. In fact, I could taste it on my tongue, because I had it two hours ago.
Two whole hours ago.
So you know where this is going.
I had to have a second dessert.
I told her it was her fault, and we had a fight.
In the end, I apologized, because she was right.
And I got what I deserved.
New York Hot Dog
By Francesca Scottoline Serritella
I was walking my little dog, Pip, late the other night, and a young man struck up a conversation that has really stuck in my head. The man happened to be very good-looking, so that could have been part of it, but I digress. He cooed over Pip, and I said proudly, “He’s my baby.”
The man looked
up, flashed me a smile, and asked, “But why would you want that? Now that you have a baby, you can’t come get a drink with me.”
Cheesy come-on aside, the man has a point. It’s not easy being a mother in the city, even if it’s only mother to a dog.
I worry about Pip. I know this is not new to all the moms out there, but it’s new to me. And there’s a lot to worry about in the city. Just last month, a young woman was hit by a cab crossing the street, breaking both her legs, but what she was most worried about was her little Yorkie, who had gotten lost in the commotion!
Pip loves to chase pigeons, and I’m always worried he’s going to slip out of his lead and chase one into the street. So I bought him a harness that is tough enough for a paratrooper.
I still wish it had an air bag.
And I could never bear to tie him up outside a store, even for a minute. He’s just so cute, he would be too tempting to steal. And he’s so friendly, he’d probably trot gaily along with his kidnapper. He’d be the Patty Hearst of dogs.
And I’d be left in the agony of not knowing what became of him, or worse, I’d find him robbing a bank in a floppy hat.
It’s too horrible to imagine.
So rather than leave him outside, I put on my best Whadda-you-lookin-at? New Yorker face and march Pip right into the coffee shop and the local bodega. Once inside, his puppy charms do the trick, and no one asks me to leave.
Good dog.
But one time he lifted a leg on the stack of newspapers outside.
Bad dog.
I am a total helicopter mom at the dog park. Instead of sitting on a bench yakking into my phone like most of the dog parents, I trail ten feet behind Pip, keeping a watchful eye on the mastiff lounging—or lying in wait?—and the terrier chewing—a little too intensely—his dirty tennis ball.
I don’t want Pip falling in with the wrong crowd.
Luckily, Pip is far better socialized than I am. He politely makes the rounds, first of dog butts, then of human knees. With his ever-wagging tail and his big, bright eyes, he is so charming that people often put down their phones or BlackBerrys and actually pull him into their laps. And these are New Yorkers!